Allotments 4 All

My pigeon defences!

Quote from: juliev on July 02, 2026, 13:29:17How exciting! Jan, I can't believe you already have chillies and peppers!

Seeds have started coming in here too.

Dark purple broad bean Reina Mora, only variety grown at home.

Mangetout Frieda Welten. I had to resow several times and fight mice and pigeons but I should have enough seeds for the circle (still a few pods on the plants). Unfortunately, it's the only pea variety I'll be able to contribute. Broad beans and peas have been a struggle. I have enough seeds to start again next year but it's frustrating...

On the other hand, the direct-sown squashes are loving life! I need to get a hand-pollinating list ready as some have started flowering already.

A dark purple broad bean sounds wonderful.I assume that's bean rather than pod. (Has there ever been a coloured pod in broad bean?)

Commiserations over your mice and pigeon battles. I have big problems with pigeons on peas too. I've found the only way to keep them off is to cover the whole lot with debris netting. Fortunately someone gave me a lot of imperfect netting from a building site and it works for that. The downside is that you have to more or less crawl underneath to pick and it's more difficult to see what's going on. In the next day or so, I'll see what dried seeds I've got and can offer.

Quote from: markfield rover on July 02, 2026, 10:19:22Hopefully Huacatay and Superior Licorice Mint to follow .

Great names but could you elaborate a little! 🙏

How exciting! Jan, I can't believe you already have chillies and peppers!

Seeds have started coming in here too.

Dark purple broad bean Reina Mora, only variety grown at home.

Mangetout Frieda Welten. I had to resow several times and fight mice and pigeons but I should have enough seeds for the circle (still a few pods on the plants). Unfortunately, it's the only pea variety I'll be able to contribute. Broad beans and peas have been a struggle. I have enough seeds to start again next year but it's frustrating...

On the other hand, the direct-sown squashes are loving life! I need to get a hand-pollinating list ready as some have started flowering already.

Hopefully Huacatay and Superior Licorice Mint to follow .

I have the first of Mr Hongs Vietnamese Mustard seeds in !

It's great to have some varieties already well under way for seed producing and contributing to the circle. And I continue to admire the way you successfully hand-pollinate cucurbits for true seed, Galina. Commiserations on Zloty Cepelin not being true to variety from your bought seed. 

I like Striato d'Italia. It's good to have what I think of as a classic dark green, striped courgette.I'm growing eight different varieties of courgette this year and six of them are producing 'white' courgettes. My seed of Alberello Genovese and Hungarian zucchini, which I thought I had isolated, is variable in what it produces, so presumably not successfully isolated after all. And this year, nearly all is white.

I haven't got as far as deciding what to contribute to the seed circle. But one strong possibility that I'm fascinated by is from Ruud's older seeds, so I'm particularly pleased to have 'saved' it. It's Ince Kabuk tomato. The name is Turkish for thin skin but I can't find out any more about it. It's not ripe yet but I'm intrigued by the way it's growing. The photo doesn't quite capture it but the trusses are large with spread out elongated fruit. The photo is just one section of a single, branching truss. I'm looking forward to finding out what they're like when ripe.

So we have our first flop this year.  I had bought seeds for a nice Polish courgette Zloty Cepelin and had a couple of issues with germination, but in the end one plant grew nicely.  https://seemnemaailm.com/en/courgette-zloty-cepelin.html

As you can see from the photo, an attractive yellow courgette.  I isolated and handpollinated the first female fruit.   Except that what is actually growing is a very pale green almost white courgette.  So that will be a no then, unfortunately. 

I have also handpollinated a Striato D'Italia, but we had that a couple of times already, and it isn't such an interesting variety in the first place.  But let me know if you are interested.

Had a major pea grow out this year and with the heat they are now rapidly coming to their natural end of cropping period.  We have Purple Podded from Heritage Seed Library, which must be the earliest and highest yielding of all the purple shelling peas,  Kent Blue the mangetout with the intensively blue coloured flowers, Swedish Yellow which was once shared in the very early days of this seed circle from Goodlife and there will probably be a couple more for the seed circle.  Maybe Visionary with its very unusual flower colour, named by Silverleaf from a seedbank 'liberation' with dark royal purple flowers. A real front garden pea.

Other circle candidates to follow.  Maybe lettuce Cressonette Maroccaine if the slugs leave them alone.  We will see what else works out in the end.  Hope everybody else has managed to get their plants through the heat wave ok.  Here watering was a proper chore and we had a few casualties regardless.  Dino melon among them unfortunately. 

Wow,  my peppers are biding their time and two early pods succumbed to slugs that made holes, then the weather shrivelled them to a crisp.  This is great Jang.  I know you started a bit earlier than I did, because you have additional lights.  But even so.  Congratulations.  Super photo.   

Both seem very early and prolific